n the chiropractic profession, the term subluxation was designed to describe a condition in which minute but dam- aging deviations from the normal positions of the vertebrae protecting the spinal cord cause disruption of the communication along the super highway that is your brain- to-body electrical network; electricity flows through nerves like water flows along a river, so think of the subluxation as the electrical equivalent of a dam. At its roots, subluxation means a condition of less light, and was originally interpreted as a condition of less life. Upper Cervical Chiropractors focus on the more delicate and smaller uppermost neck vertebrae, which protect the brain-to-body network’s cell tower equivalent, the brainstem. With respect to the desire to better

define subluxation within chiropractic and to keep the term confined to the spine (or to the brainstem), the root translation of the term as a condition of less life could be applied in many ways, not the least of which as a tool to better educate a society mightily struggling to figure out wellness while heavily influenced by a healthcare system aimed predominantly at sickness. The human body is a well-oiled ma-

chine, the most intricately and intelli- gently designed assembly line in the his- tory of mankind, replenishing damaged cells with incredible efficiency (i.e. cuts healing in two weeks, broken bones mend- ing in six weeks, nerves returning to rela- tive normalcy in four months post-injury), creating new cells via the food we eat within minutes, and constantly seeking to

maintain for us a body-wide even keel. A discussion of subluxation, then, is an ex- ercise in identifying the various agents of slowing down your internal assembly line. You can no more expect optimal health when your internal assembly line is func- tioning abnormally than you can elite production of a car when an automobile assembly line is in some way failing. Nutritional deficiency, then, is a form of subluxation, is it not? Given that food is eaten for the most basic reason to build new cells and that new cell production is decreased in effectiveness when lacking essential materials with which to build the best quality new cells, a nutritional defi- ciency is a condition of less life (a sublux- ation). A sedentary lifestyle robs the body of the movement necessary to maximize